PRIME MINISTER TONU ABBOTT delivered the keynote address at a Melbourne Instituteconference last night and, whilst advocating for foreign investment, he shed some light on his particular take on history, crediting Australia’s existence on British “foreign investment” in

“… the then unsettled or, um, scarcely settlement, Great South Land.”

This, of course, is the same Tony Abbott who, in the lead up to last year’s election, told a large group at Arnhem land that he would spend his first week as Prime Minister with the Yolngu People.

So, who is this Mundine? And why has he thrown his support behind a prime minister whose attitude towards Indigenous Australia is ambivalent at best and downright duplicitous at worst?

As a proud member of Australia’s First Peoples, I would like to talk about Warren Mundine and his relationship and connection to Indigenous Australia, as well as lay out what a person in his position should aim to achieve.

Warren Mundine is an accomplished man with a large family and extensive political history with the Australian Labor Party — however, those closest to Mundine do consider his political aspirations self-serving rather than for the greater good of the Aboriginal people.

I am sure that Warren Mundine’s ‘leadership’ status and ‘advisor’ capacity has nothing to do with the fact that he shares the same religious philosophy as the Prime Minister, is an economic conservative that supports Abbott’s policies of individual economic participation as being of more importance than the empowerment of communities and he appears to tow the party line.

He has supported a political party and policies that have set Indigenous people back, and makes outlandish comments of this nature, which not only deny the history of this nation, but belittle it for an economic cause.

An example is the recent announcement of $42m funding being cut from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service (ATSILS).

The ATSILS is the one organisation that attempts to counterbalance the obvious discrimination that occurs in the criminal justice system. It is accepted as fact, and there is a tremendous amount of data to support, the contention that Indigenous Australians are racially profiled and are more likely to receive custodial sentences than their non-Indigenous counterparts for the same crime. Nevertheless, ATSILS is staring down the barrel of a crippling funding cut.

In my opinion, Mundine and Abbott can expel rhetoric about efficiencies until the cows come home but a cut is a cut and cuts of this magnitude, targeted in such a manner, illustrate a complete disconnect between Abbott, his adviser and the Aboriginal populace at large.

The real issues faced by the Aboriginal communities all over Australia – noting that the issues are different for many of the community groups – have not been considered in any meaningful way and it is the duty of the Indigenous Affairs advisor to stop defending “great bloke” Abbott, and the Government he leads, and start advocating forcefully for the Indigenous people he is meant to represent.

I do not have a problem with Warren Mundine as a person, I have a problem with what he represents. What he represents is the patriarchal manner in which political parties in Australia approach the issue of Indigenous Affairs.

It is not acceptable for political parties to appoint a token representative to address the issue, misrepresent to the community they are going to be acting in the best interests of the community and then fail to consult the community upon which they are imposing laws and policies.

Has the Bringing Them Home report been forgotten completely? Have we lost the essence of that the Indigenous culture is all about? Community consultation and involvement is paramount!

The patriarchal “for the good of them” attitude is Aboriginal protectionist policy continued into the modern day. For as long as Indigenous policy is approached in this manner, it will fail.

It is apparent from the actions of the government that their priorities are all about governmental budget savings rather than effecting any real change to the consciousness of Australians that might lead us all to a more inclusive nation.